Most of the cars Tesla sells in China are made in China, but Elon Musk's company is not immune from the trade war. The company has stopped accepting orders in China for two models it imports from the US, the Model S sedan and the Model X SUV, the New York Times reports. The order button for those models was removed from Tesla's website Friday, the same day that Beijing announced that China's tariffs on US imports are rising to 125%. China's finance ministry said it wouldn't respond if President Trump raised tariffs on imports from China again because it was "already impossible for the Chinese market to accept US imports at the current tariff level."
Tesla's Shanghai factory makes the Model 3 sedan and the Model Y SUV, which account for most of its sales in China, reports Reuters. The company sold around 2,000 vehicles imported from the US last year, compared to almost 620,000 of its made-in-China vehicles. The halt to imports from the US won't make a huge difference in sales figures, but it is a "setback to the company's already shaky position in China," where sales have been slipping for months, Bloomberg reports.
Last month, Tesla sales in China were down 11.5% compared to a year earlier, while sales for its main competitor, BYD, rose 23%, the Times reports. Tesla sales worldwide are also significantly down, but a new market opened up on Thursday. Tesla officially launched sales in Saudi Arabia with the opening of a new showroom in Riyadh, which drew a large crowd, the AP reports. The country's extreme heat, however, could cause problems with Tesla batteries—and the world's largest oil exporter has a limited number of electric vehicle charging stations. (More Tesla stories.)
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